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The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science Advance Access published online on May 18, 2007
The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, doi:10.1093/bjps/axm002
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Copyright © The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of British Society for the Philosophy of Science.

Deterministic Chance?

Jonathan Schaffer

Department of Philosophy, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, 352 Bartlett Hall, Amherst, MA 01060, USA


  Abstract

Can there be deterministic chance? That is, can there be objective chance values other than 0 or 1, in a deterministic world? I will argue that the answer is no. In a deterministic world, the only function that can play the role of chance is one that outputs just 0s and 1s. The role of chance involves connections from chance to credence, possibility, time, intrinsicness, lawhood, and causation. These connections do not allow for deterministic chance.

1 Overview
2 Four Arguments for Deterministic Chance
3 Four Conceptions of Deterministic Chance
4 The Role of Chance
5 The Case against Posterior Deterministic Chance
6 The Case against Initial Deterministic Chance
7 Epistemic Chance


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